In the Here and Now
by July Storms
Summary: Prompt: "Sex after a hard day's work when they come home from an expedition." (Levihan.)


**In the Here and Now**

**Prompt**: "Sex after a hard day's work when they come home from an expedition." (Requested by Korramexicana.)

**Notes**: It's not super smutty, but that's sort of the point. This story was basically destined to be finished tonight. As I got to the sex scene, the village I live in started their annual fireworks display. (It's always the Saturday after the fourth. Got a laugh out of me, I can say that much.)

* * *

People die on every mission; this has been a proven fact since Hange's first expedition outside of the walls, but that doesn't make it any easier to accept.

Losses were high again this time, in the double-digits before the rain started. It was Nanaba who saw the clouds closing in on the open plain; an emergency flare from Squad Leader Mike send the Scouting Legion scrambling for cover, but there wasn't any. It took them two full days to get back inside the safety of the walls. The spongey ground was mud after the first day, and the supply wagons struggled through it with tired horses whose backs had been rubbed sore by chafing harnesses.

The rain did not deter the titans; the heavy rain in the steamy summer air made visibility low and more lives were lost.

Hange feels sick to her stomach thinking about it, thinking about how futile fighting is, sometimes. Her glasses fog up as she follows Levi into the barracks, and she has to pull them up to sit against her forehead; the straps tangle with her limp hair and she tries to wipe the water from her face, forgetting that her clothes are soaked through.

Levi doesn't say anything to her; he speaks with a touch, a firm squeeze of her elbow as he continues down the hall toward his personal quarters. She enters her own, muscles a little too stiff, skin feeling clammy beneath her wet clothes. She shucks her jacket and slips out of her harness, sets her 3DMG in a safe corner where the door won't hit it, and grabs a change of clothes—something soft and safe and comfortable.

The women's bath is filled; water was prepped the moment they arrived, and Hange thinks that she's never been more grateful for the searing heat. She's not the only one who takes advantage of it, though, who strips out of her drenched clothes and frees her hair and slides into an available cramped washtub not giving a single damn about how it hurts.

Petra flashes her a smile, but it's sad. Someone starts to cry—one of the newer recruits. Petra's smile falls away from her face like autumn leaves from a tree: slow and fluttering and reluctant.

Talking is hushed and soft and it mostly consists of consolations and encouragement. Hange doesn't say anything; she doesn't trust herself to speak. She makes a good show of wearing a hardened face, the same face everyone learns to wear when they've lived more than five years in the Scouting Legion, when they've lost one friend, and then another—until eventually the names get jumbled up and they can't remember how many friends and acquaintances they've lost to expeditions.

Hange is the first done. She towels off and pulls on clean clothes: an oversized shirt and shorts. She stops back in her own quarters to hang her towel over the foot of the bed, to deposit her dirty laundry in the basket, and then she heads for Levi's room.

He's waiting for her under the blankets, arms folded behind his head. Neither of them say anything. He lifts up the blankets and she scoots in next to him; they fit comfortably there, side by side, facing one another. Her hand moves at the same time his does; her fingers slide in between his, and she squeezes his hand; he squeezes back. His fingers are cold.

* * *

They both fall asleep, eventually. When Hange wakes, the room is dark and Levi is still holding her hand, though his grip is loose. He's still asleep, his breathing low and even and reassuring. She takes her hand back and touches his face: if she thinks hard enough, she can see the creases at the corners of his eyes with her fingers, the way his hair falls across his forehead, his lips, which quirk upward beneath her fingers.

"You were worried," he says.

Of course she was! She hadn't seen him until they made it back inside the walls; she'd had to wonder for two days if he was all right. "Yeah."

"Don't."

"You're not invincible," she whispers, and kisses him, fingers sliding to the back of his neck; she touches a scar there to prove her point.

He's quick to respond to the kiss, but he ignores her comment; maybe he doesn't know what to say. His hand moves up to her hair, pushing the half-dry tangles away from her face before he moves his lips to her neck.

Hange turns her head, sighs at the way his lips feel against her skin and the way his hair feels against her cheek. "I was so worried," she says, feeling her chest tighten again, the way it had felt for almost two full days.

He stops and pulls away, stares at her for a moment. Then he kisses her mouth again; it's a hard kiss, hot and demanding and when he pulls away he says, "I'm right here, shitty-glasses."

She lets out a sound that's something like a laugh. "They really were shitty in the rain," she tells him, pressing her forehead against his.

The next kiss is soft, and so are all the ones after that, this time. Levi doesn't say anything; he's alive and he's warm and that's what really matters. Hange nibbles on his bottom lip and sucks at his neck to hear his voice in whatever capacity he's willing to give it to her.

He pulls her against him and she tangles her legs with his, smiling against his skin when it makes his hand fist in the fabric of her shirt.

"You want to?" she asks, but she already knows the answer. When he doesn't respond to her question, when he slides his hand up the front of her shirt and brushes his fingers against the underside of one of her breasts, she moves a hand between them to stroke him through his pants.

"Goddammit, Hange," he says.

"Well, _do_ you?"

"What do you think?" He pinches one of her nipples, and she lets out an embarrassing squeak.

They don't speak much, after that, but they're used to a lot of wordless agreement. She pulls him on top of her, wants to feel his weight because it means he's real, he's there and warm and alive. When he's peeled off her shorts and tossed them onto the floor, she pulls him down for another kiss, and it's so long and gentle that she almost wants to cry.

She likes to think she doesn't need anyone, ever, but she needed this kiss that first day, when she'd seen what seemed like everyone but him.

Usually their post-expedition tumbles are fast and hot and hard and desperate, but not this time. This time they keep slowing down to kiss. Half the time it's her fault, and half the time it's his; he'll never admit it, but she knows he likes kissing her, likes it more than sex sometimes. This time, she does too, because his body is pressed against hers, all the weight of him; he moves inside of her so slowly that at any other time, she might complain, she might be impatient, she might be annoyed at having to wait to get off, but _this time_ she loves it, loves how soft and slow and _gentle_ everything is.

He kisses her face: lips and cheek and even her nose; he missed her, too, she thinks, spent two days wondering if she was okay, spent two days fearing the worst, but here she is, alive and in one piece, one knee bent, foot flat on the bed, and the other foot touching him: the curve of his spine, his ass, the back of his legs; she wraps it loosely around his waist in the end, some kind of subconscious desire to get him closer to her.

She doesn't care if she gets off at all, but almost as soon as she thinks the thought, he's touching her, rubbing circles against her clit to try to get her off first.

She usually closes her eyes when he touches her, mostly to concentrate on how he makes her feel, but also a little embarrassed, sometimes, of how dumb she must look, when she starts moaning, even when it's just under her breath. But she keeps her eyes open this time, watches him watching her: the little furrow between his brows as he concentrates on moving in her and touching her at the same time, the way his hair looks, sticking up in the back, and how his breath hitches every time he pulls a sound out of her.

As soon as she gets too loud, he kisses her, swallows the sounds she makes as her insides clench around him; he doesn't stop touching her until she stops shaking, until she pushes his hand away—makes it clear that she's finished.

Only then does he worry about himself, but he keeps it slow, keeps his eyes on her, right on her face, and she flashes him a pleased smile when his expression flickers, when she can tell he's holding back a moan.

Hange reaches for the nightstand, grabs the handkerchief that's sitting there, and when Levi moans low in the back of his throat and pulls out in a hurry, she's ready with it, catching his release and rubbing down the length of him until he stops shuddering.

There's a moment that passes between them, when she tosses the handkerchief on the floor somewhere, where she wraps her arms around him and just holds him; they didn't even get properly undressed: both are still wearing shirts it seems, but it's still nice, just holding and being held. He rests a hand on her head, pulling it through her damp hair.

"You need a comb," he says.

"Mmm."

Then he kisses her softly and brings her down to the mattress with him. She fumbles with the blankets, tugging them up to cover the both of them, and he rests his forehead against hers.

He doesn't say that he loves her.

She doesn't say that she loves him.

But they're both thinking it; she knows that much. She can feel it, too: in the easy way they adjust their position until they're both comfortable, in the way his fingers grasp at the back of her loose shirt, in the gentle rise and fall of his chest, in the beating of his heart, in the way he says,

"Shitty-glasses, get your elbow out of my gut. You're going to make me take a shit right here—"

Because it makes her laugh until her sides hurt; only Levi could say something so stupid, so ridiculous, so completely unromantic after sex, but somehow, he knew that she needs to laugh, and she thinks maybe she loves him all the more for it.

Or maybe it's just how he is, and…it works.

They work.

It's not something they've done; they haven't molded themselves to fit the other.

They just happen to fit together perfectly, conveniently, exactly as they are.


End file.
